Writing Box with Cranes, Pines, Plum Blossoms, and Characters 18th century Japan Auspicious motifs such as cranes, pine trees, and plum blossoms, together with three silver-inlaid characters, appear on the lid of this writing box. Two of the cranes are executed in silver foil. On the inside of the lid, plovers fly over a rocky shore lined with pine trees. The landscape is lit by a silver moon, and the dry patches of the seashore are also inlaid in silver. The front of the lid might be a reference to a poem (chka) by Yamabe no Akahito (active 8th century):Waka no ura ni shiomichi kureba kata o nami ashibe o sashite tazu naki-wataru At Waka Baythe tide flows in,covering the sandbars,as cranes fly towarda bed of reeds, crying.—Trans. John T. CarpenterOn the inside is an anonymous poem from the Kokinwakash anthology. The plover’s chirp is said to sound like “chiyo,” as contained in the phrase “eight thousand years” (ya-chiyo):Shio no yama sashide no iso ni sumu chidori kimi ga miyo oba y